Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume III.djvu/259

 BKESLAU BRESSON 253 in 1865, but soon rebuilt. In the market place is a statue of Frederick the Great, and one of Bliicher in the Bliicher place. The streets are well paved and broad, with granite sidewalks, Town Hall. and lighted with gas. The benevolent institu- tions are more numerous and better provided than in most cities of Germany. There are four gymnasia, a seminary for classical and one for popular teachers, an architectural and artistic academy, and a university founded in 1702 and enlarged in 1811, which possesses a library of "upward of 300,000 volumes and many manu- scripts, a botanical garden, an observatory, a clinical institute, and various scientific collec- tions. There is a missionary and a Bible insti- tution, and the Leopold's or imperial society of naturalists has its seat here. A zoological gar- den was opened in 1865. There are four large libraries besides that of the university, several small but valuable picture galleries, a numis- matic cabinet, 18 hospitals, and four orphan asylums. Breslau is built on originally Polish territory; it was founded about 1000. When in 1163 the surrounding territory was separated from Poland by the emperor Frederick I., who intervened in a quarrel of the sons of Ladislas II., and made two of them, Konrad and Boles- las, independent dukes of what is now Silesia, a city charter was given to Breslau, which was already inhabited by a large population of Ger- mans. In 1335 it came into the possession of the Bohemian kings, and in 1526, with Bohemia, into that of the Austrians, from whom Frederick the Great wrested it by the invasion of 1741 and the seven years' war. Like all Silesia, it shared the good and bad fortune of Bohemia in the 14th, 15th, and 16th centuries, and succumbed in two attempts of the citizens to make them- selves independent of the archbishops and the patrician families. It early embraced the ref- ormation. In 1742 the first peace between Frederick the Great and Austria was conclu- ded here. In 1757 the Austrians defeated near the city a weaker Prussian army, but were driven out again in the same year by [ enzien bravely defended the town against Lou- leaguered by the French under Vandamme, taken, and the fortifications demolished. BRESSANI, Franteseo Giuseppe, an Italian mis- sionary, member of the society of Jesus, born in Rome in 1612, died in Florence, Sept. 9, 1 672. He was sent to Canada, and spent two years among the Indians near Quebec. In the ! spring of 1644 he was directed to go on a mis- '. sion to the Hurons. On the way he was cap- ' : tured by a party of Iroquois, who subjected him to fearful torture. They then made him over to an old squaw, to take the place of a deceased relative ; she sent him to the Dutch
 * Frederick's victory at Leuthen. In 1760 Tau-
 * don's besieging army. In 1806-'7 it was be-
 * of Fort Orange, now Albany, who paid a large

i ransom for him, kept him until his strength j was restored, and then put him on board a ves- I sel bound for La Rochelle, where he arrived on j Nov. 15. In the following spring, maimed and i again sent to the Hurons, with whom he re- i mained till 1650, when, his health being broken down, he returned to Italy. His Relazione dei missionary della compagnia de Genti nella A r o-Fra7icia(Macerata, 1653) was translated into English in Montreal in 1852. BRESSANT, Jean Baptiste Prosper, a French ac- tor, born at Chalon-sur-Sa6ne, Oct. 24, 1815. He made his debut in Paris in 1835, and after acting for long terms at the Varietes and Gym- nase theatres of that city and in St. Petersburg, he became in 1854 a member of the Comedie Francaise. He has been distinguished as a light comedian both in the modern and the classic drama ; also in such parts as Richelieu in Du- mas's Mile, de Belle-Isle. BRESSON, Charles, count de, a French diplo- matist, born in Paris, died by his own hand in Naples, Nov. 2, 1847. His father was one of the chief clerks in the department of foreign affairs. During the restoration he was sent on a special mission to the republic of Colombia. After the revolution of 1830 he entered the service of Louis Philippe, and was appointed charge d'affaires and afterward minister in Ber- lin. In 1834 he was made minister of foreign affairs, and afterward sent again to Berlin as ambassador. During this embassy, in 1837, he negotiated the marriage of the duke of Orleans with the princess Helen of Mecklenburg, and was created a peer. In 1841 he was made am- bassador to Madrid, where he brought about the marriage of the duke of Montpensier with the sister of Isabella II., and of the queen her- self with her first cousin, the infante Fran- cisco de Assis. For this service Bresson ex- pected to be rewarded by the embassy to Lon- don, but failed to obtain it, and was sent in 1847 as ambassador to Naples. The king of the Two Sicilies, whose hope of securing the hand of a Spanish princess for one of his bro- thers had been frustrated by Bresson's negotia- tions, received him in the most offensive man- ner; and the affront, preying upon a mind
 * disfigured, he returned to Canada, and was